Sea Change/Tree Change

[LifeChoices]

1 .Who's done it,
2. where did you go,
3. how are you finding it?

 

[nioka]

It's great. Providing you know:
1. What you want out of life.
2. What you need out of life.
3. Your capabilities.
4. Where you go really is what you assume it is.
5. That it is easier to get "it" than to get out of "it".
6. It will not be as easy as you think.
7. It will cost more than you think.

Part of my experience.

After years of looking around and living in different places with different lifestyles we thought we had found an ideal place. A few acres beside the Burrum river. Handy to Harvey Bay. A dam beside a nice home set beside the river renound for its fishing and mud crabs. Access to Harvey Bay suitable for the 40ft cruiser. Water for the garden from the dam. Some established fruit trees and gardens.

We made the owner an offer through an agent at a price close to the sellers price but prepared to pay the price advertised.

The owner told the agent they wouldnt accept the offer and if we weren't going to buy then he should rent it out for 6 months. It was vacant. Good we said. We'll rent it for 6 months with an option to buy. Best thing we ever did.

Now I dont mean it was the best place we ever found. Quite the opposite. Firstly we hardly had a day in 6 months when you could go outside without being attacked by midges. The midge problem in itself was enough to put one off but...Secondly there were practically no mud crabs caught even though I permanently had a trap in the water. Legal sized fish were in very short supply. Thirdly the water supply from the dam lasted only a couple of weeks. It was built on a flat rock with a surface area of about 300 sq metres and looked huge but it was on average only about 40cm deep. With a solid rock base it couldn't be deepened.

The house had slate floors throughout. Looked great but was so uneven that it was very hard to get 4 legs of a chair to all find the floor at the same time. The flying foxes ate the fruit. The neighbours dog barked day in day out. The neighbours chooks came in and cleaned up the garden. The natives weren't that friendly.

The good part was that we didn't own it and walked away after 6 months.

The better part is that the next place has everything that we had expected to get with that one.

It is like share trading. You win some you lose some. However nothing ventured, nothing gained and there is always the should have or what if when you look back over time. Like share trading there is also a learning curve and you need to try before you buy.

 

[Macquack]

Good story Noika. Hope we get to hear about your current Northern NSW Oasis.

 

[Wysiwyg]

Firstly we hardly had a day in 6 months when you could go outside without being attacked by midges. The midge problem in itself was enough to put one off but...

We call them sand flies and an annoying combo with smother flies and mosquitos while crabbing.

Secondly there were practically no mud crabs caught even though I permanently had a trap in the water.

With the muddies you have to know where to catch them.

 

[burglar]

...With the muddies you have to know where to catch them.

When to catch them is not so important if you "permanently had a trap in the water"!

Send the undersized ones home with a note to the parents to come and see you in your office.

 

[nioka]

With the muddies you have to know where to catch them.

I've been catching mud crabs for 70 years. If they are not there they ar not there. The reason there are not a lot at Burrum Heads is because there are traps all along the river owned by people that take undersized and females to the point that they are just not there in quantity any more. In years gone by if you wanted one you just went out and got it. After Burrum Heads the Clarence River yielded two or three a week almost all year round from the same pot permanently set from my pontoon. I love my muddies.

 

[Greg]

Thanks for a great post nioka, you wouldn't believe how timely and relevant it is for me!

I am in the process of selling my place in Melbourne (auction this weekend!) and heading up north to the Sunshine Coast - somewhere around Noosa seems like the shot.

To hear your experience is great for someone who has an emotional dream to live up there, but, as you say, what you think you might be heading for could be a completely false expectation.

How lucky you were to be able to "try before you buy" that's an excellent option, I might look into that a bit more.

Glad you found something more suitable and thanks again for the "reality check".

 

[Glen48]

Word is Sunshine house prices are down about 40% rent for awhile and wait

 

[Julia]

Thanks for a great post nioka, you wouldn't believe how timely and relevant it is for me!

I am in the process of selling my place in Melbourne (auction this weekend!) and heading up north to the Sunshine Coast - somewhere around Noosa seems like the shot.

Why are you leaving Melbourne, Greg?

What, apart from much better weather, do you think the Noosa area will offer you that Melbourne does not?

Having moved from a main city to a regional area, I miss immensely the cultural opportunities that only exist in a main centre.
Another consideration is that most regional areas have second class medical facilities rather than the top medical care you have in a city with its teaching hospitals.

 

[Logique]

Yeah I'd take Melbourne every time. Water, doctors, specialists, hospitals, theatre, concerts, galleries, big sports.

Rural areas can be very light on for some of the essentials.

Also if you've never lived in a small rural community, it is socially very different to the city, with very different rules.

 

[Greg]

Why are you leaving Melbourne, Greg?

What, apart from much better weather, do you think the Noosa area will offer you that Melbourne does not?

Having moved from a main city to a regional area, I miss immensely the cultural opportunities that only exist in a main centre.
Another consideration is that most regional areas have second class medical facilities rather than the top medical care you have in a city with its teaching hospitals.

Hi Julia/Logique - Thanks for your comments and queries.
For us it's a lifestyle change in line with downsizing and setting ourselves up for the "R" word! We have been fortunate enough to have lived in Melbourne for almost 30 years and our 2 (great) kids are mostly off doing their own thing, so now it's time for us to re-think our next few years and what's important to us. Part of our thinking is that whilst we love Melbourne, the winter nights can be a bit chilly and our house is a huge chunk of equity that we would like to realise and re-distribute to provide us with a workable income - hence the downsize journey.
We did a trip this time last year up to Cape York (classic grey nomad story) and we fell in love with Noosa on the way up and Maroochydore on the way down. We figured if we like it here, why don't we come and live here? So we came home, broke the news to the kids and spent the last year renovating bathrooms, tidying gardens and some stage 1 "de-cluttering". Sadly, I think we may have missed the peak of the house prices and I'm not at all confident about selling on the weekend (not enough genuinely interested parties I don't think) but of course the real estate agent was "very confident" at the start of the campaign.
Comments from you both are valid and welcomed. We understand that living in a place can be very different to visiting a place. We have also heard about some of the services that may not be quite as good as they are in Melbourne (or any capital city for that matter) and we also understand the reduced access to the cultural things; but we're OK with that. We're pretty easy-going and fortunately enjoy each others company, so I think we've thought it through enough to give it a shot.
The other option we have (and I am serioulsy considering this one) is to sell up in Melbourne, maybe travel to the Sunshine Coast via Perth, Broome, Darwin, Cairns (yes, the pretty route!) and then settle into a caravan park around Coolum Beach for a while and see if we really do like the area. We are fortunate to have that option.
The other obvious challenge will be leaving our kids and friends down here. But there are no Grandchildren involved at this stage, and our friends all assure us they will visit us (hmmm, we'll see if that actually happens?) so it's a good time to find out if it suits us.
If it doesn't work out for us, then we always have the option of coming back (with all the usual considerations about housing etc.) but we'll give it a red-hot go and I hope we find it to be as enjoyable as we anticipate it being.
Thanks again for your interest and any additional input/feedback is most welcome.
All the best
Greg

 

[Logique]

Hi Greg,
looks like the momentum is unstoppable.
Have you considered renting out your house instead of selling it? That pays for you to rent on the Sunshine Coast while you work out whether it's for you.
And have a full medical before you leave Melbourne.
Hope it works out for you in becoming a 'Cane Toad' (they call us 'Cockroaches').

 

[Tink]

Yep I agree Logique, have you considered renting your Melbourne home Greg while you work out what you want to do?

We have friends that have rented their home out in Melbourne and have bought and moved to the N.T. Big plans for a change but I cant see them staying more than 12 months.

Regional is good for a holiday but there is no way I could move out there.

As said, hope it all works out.

 

[nunthewiser]

done it a few times

moved from perth to gero.....for the more relaxed and beach lifestyle and safety for my kids.

moved from gero to tassie........ business and real estate and a change of pace. loved it and will return to land i own at a later date

back to gero for opportunities for my kids.....going backwards in tassie but we was in the huon valley where things are a bit different for the youth.

also lived in melbourne for years and SA for a spell....left melbourne for WA for family reasons..........left SA because anyone in there right mind does sooner or later.

 

[LifeChoices]

Yeah I'd take Melbourne every time.

Melbourne's a hole

 

[ghotib]

We settled on our tree change property just over 6 months ago, after renting the house on a rural property in the area for a year. We looked around in NSW and Victoria for 4 years, just missed out on what seemed the perfect property inland from Taree in 2008, and eventually decided on the NSW Southern Highlands.

We've gone from an 8th of an acre 5 kms from Sydney city to 5 acres 5 kms outside Moss Vale, which is one of the 3 larger towns in the area. We've never been busier, we've never learnt so much so fast, we've never made so many funny mistakes, and I think we've never been closer.

Love it.

 

[prawn_86]

We settled on our tree change property just over 6 months ago, after renting the house on a rural property in the area for a year. We looked around in NSW and Victoria for 4 years, just missed out on what seemed the perfect property inland from Taree in 2008, and eventually decided on the NSW Southern Highlands.

We've gone from an 8th of an acre 5 kms from Sydney city to 5 acres 5 kms outside Moss Vale, which is one of the 3 larger towns in the area. We've never been busier, we've never learnt so much so fast, we've never made so many funny mistakes, and I think we've never been closer.

Love it.

That sounds great if your at the correct stage of life. I love it down in the Southern Highlands we go down to Bowral once every couple of months

 

[Greg]

We settled on our tree change property just over 6 months ago, after renting the house on a rural property in the area for a year. We looked around in NSW and Victoria for 4 years, just missed out on what seemed the perfect property inland from Taree in 2008, and eventually decided on the NSW Southern Highlands.

We've gone from an 8th of an acre 5 kms from Sydney city to 5 acres 5 kms outside Moss Vale, which is one of the 3 larger towns in the area. We've never been busier, we've never learnt so much so fast, we've never made so many funny mistakes, and I think we've never been closer.

Love it.

Ghotib - What a great story and with a very similar outcome to the one we're hoping for. Well done.

Tink, Logique - I'm warming to the idea of renting out my place and really trying out the new location before buying into the local market. The only problem with that model is that I had planned to put the "surplus" cash from my house sale to boost the super to a point where we become financially self-sufficient. If I rent my place Melbourne and then pay rent on the Sunshine Coast I won't have that lump sum in super to make the income work. But I am hearing the whole "proceed with caution" thing, thanks.

Glen48 - yes, been tracking one property up Noosa way that looks good on the website and it dropped $50k (or 10%) last week. The Sunshine Coast housing market is coming to meet us on price, but that's why I'm a bit concerned about this weekend - I'm afraid we might not get what's needed at this end. Time will tell!

Thanks everyone

 

[Glen48]

No problem wait a bit longer the prices will come down some more and then wait a bit longer and they will come down some more and in 5-6 yrs time maybe close to the bottom.

 

[Logique]

...and eventually decided on the NSW Southern Highlands.
Love it.

Nice choice. Upmarket chic. Although with the climate, when the Mars mission is being prepared, NASA should hold a training camp in Bowral, so they'll know what to expect on Mars.

But, Bundanoon is Brigadoon, and how big has that event grown, must be starting to outgrow the capacity of the place.